Gleaner Company Ltd., Stokes (Dudley) V. Abrahams (Eric Anthony).Pdf
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JAMAICA IN THE COURT OF APPEAL SUPREME COURT CIVIL APPEAL NO: 70/96 COR: THE HON. MR. JUSTICE FORTE, P. THE HON. MR. JUSTICE HARRISON, J.A. THE HON. MR. JUSTICE LANGl�IN, J.A. BETWEEN THE GLEANER COMPANY LIMITED DEFENDANTS/ DUDLEY STOKES APPELLANTS AND ERIC ANTHONY ABRAHAMS PLAINTIFF/ RESPONDENT Emil George, Q.C., with GarthMcBean & Yoland Whitely Instructed by Richard Ashenheim of Dunn, Cox, Orrett & Ash,imheim for Appellants Winston Spaulding, Q.C., Gayle Nelson, Mrs. Nancy Tulloch .. Qarby, Mrs., Crislyn Beecher-Bravo & Marina Sakhno instructed by Gayle Nelson & Co for Respondent October 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 November 1, 2, 3,4, 5, '1999 January 31, February 1, 2, & July 31, 2000 FORTE, P: The respondent is a gentleman of solid background and a son of a well respected family in Jamaica. As a result, he was the beneficiary of ;3 good education, received at two of the leading high schools in Jamaica from where h1:i moved on to the University College of the West Indies. Taking advantage of thesE: opportunities he excelled not only in academics, but also in sports and in other extra curricular activities, 2 particularly that of debating in which he represented the Universi•:y in international competitions. His qualifications were good enough to earn him the coveted Rhodes Scholarship, which allowed him the honour of attending the presti�1ious University of Oxford in England. At Oxford, he became President of the West Indies Society and President of the Oxford Union a debating Society. The respondent, however soon fell into problems at Oxford which led to his being sent down. In his evidence he gives an explanation, which suggests that the reason for this, was the stand he, took in relation to the visit of a South African Ambassador to the University during th,� times when the Apartheid regime existed in South Africa. He had planned a mass ve demonstration against the Ambassador, which turned sour as the Ambassador "got a little roughed up." The demonstration it seemed, also coincided with the arrest of Nel:;.on Mandela. He became a television reporter for the British Broadcasting Corporati<:in rising from the lowest rank as a production assistant to become a director and then a television reporter. ln 1965/66 he resigned to return to his native land as Assistant to the Director of Tourism. Two years later, at the age of 28, he was appointed Chai •man, and Director of Tourism. In that job, he studied "a lot about tourism". He took the c,pportunity to learn and understand the foreign tour operators and travel agents and tc, develop contacts with them. He developed a lot of friends in the tourist industry, and 11is background at the University College of the West Indies and in England gave him access to a lot of persons in the industry who had been his fellow students in those clays. In 197 4, he resigned as Director of Tourism, and entered business as a tourism consultant. He did some valuable work including consultancies with the Organization of American States (0.A.S.) the Government of El Salvador and EasternAirlines. He unsuccessfully contested the national elections in Jam,iica in 1976 after which he was appointed a member of the Senate. Having served a year he went to 3 Barbados to head the O.A.S. Regional office, and while there throu�11 the OAS he did consultancies with the Governments of Barbados, Grenada, St. Lucia, Haiti and Bolivia. In 1980, he came home and contested the general electiom;, this time being successful. Thereafter he was appointed Minister of Tourism. In t/·,e 1983 elections, not contested by the opposition party he was returned unopposeid, and thereafter continued as Minister of Tourism until 1984, when he resigned as Mini:;ter, but remained in Parliament. During this time, the respondent testified, he had !he opportunity to further increase contacts, "press contacts, trade contacts, public r,elations contacts, government contacts both regional and international.'1 After his resignation, the respondent went back to his private consultancy business, and made available to the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Asi;ociation, and the government of Jamaica, his advice and contacts. The respondent at this time, if he were believed, had established himself as having vast experience in the tourism industry and considerable knowledge in respect of the same, and also a lot of contai:ts both regionally and internationally. He was a person respected for his knowledge and experience, not only at home . butJntl:!matiQnaJ!y 1lc1ving ctqne consult�mcifls.for varioyi; c:ountriEls,. J-le waF. at.this ti111e_ enjoying a good reputation, and success in his consultancy business, though, handicapped so far as international organizations were concerned, b)' his continuing as a Member of Parliament, as those organizations did not "favour" active politicians. It was at this time that the Articles, the subject of the appeal, were published by the defendants. The respondent had had an introduction to the allegations to be made against him on the day before the first of these publications took plact:. On that day, he received a call from a Miss Lisa Marie Peterson, from the Associated Press in Stanford Connecticut. She read to him what appears to have been an Articlewllich she proposed to publish. The respondent testified that the Articleshe read sounded 1:ixactly to the word 4 like the Article he was to see in the Star Newspaper the following d,iy. He got angry, threatened to sue if the Article was published in that form and gave her three reasons why the Article was not true. She agreed to amend the Article. The, following day, he received a call from his Attorney who read the Article in the Star Newi;paper to him. As a result he went to the Attorney's office and read the Article. He ded:led to rectify it, by calling the second defendant/appellant and giving him the same ir1formation he had given to Miss Peterson. When he got the second defendant/appellan: on the phone, he told him of the content of the conversation with Miss Peterson and told him he would write "a (clarification) denial, and that he would be obliged if he could carry it in the following day's Star". Mr. Stokes at that time had no knowledge he ::.aid, of the Article that had been published in the Star. He wrote the denial and took it to the Gleaner Company that same evening, but it was not published in the Star of the following day. Instead, on the following morning, the same Article, with one pc:rt excluded, was published in the Daily Gleaner, without any of the denials contained in his "clarification" taken to the appellants' offices on the evening before. The responclent consequently called the second defendant/appellant, and complained "bitterly" about not publishing his correction in the Star. In answer, the second defendant/appellant s1:ated that he had been overruled and that he knew it was going to cause trouble. The article in the Star Newspaper of the 1ih September, 1987 referred to above, and the sut>ject matter of the case is as hereunder: It is headlined as follows: "Author says his diary sparked kickba1:;ks investigation" Then it reads: "STAMFORD, Connecticut: Author Robin Moore says his personal diary and files contributed to Federal authorities suspicions that New Y:lrk 5 business executives paid kickbacks to Jamaican officials for lucrative tourism promotion contracts. 'All l can say is l suspected the Minister of Tourism was exacting a toll,' the writer, Robin Moore of Westport, !old the Advocate of Stamford in a copyright story publis ·1ed Tuesday. 'Call it a bribe, call it anything you want,' said Moore, the author of 'The French Connection', a novel on c ·ug smuggling. The. Advocate reported Sunday that Federal authoritie :i in Connecticut are investigating public relations ;:1nd advertising executives suspected of paying Jamai :;an officials one million dollars for contracts worth $40 million from 1981-1985. The Advocate, quoting anonymous sources close to the probe has said five or six executives of the public relati :ms firm Ruder Finn and Rotman and the advertising 1' irm Young and Rubicam are the focus of the investigation. Officials of both firms have denied any wrongdoing ,:ind said they are co-operating with investigators. KEY FIGURE Moore said Monday that his files helped lead Fed1 :iral agents to suspect that Anthony Abrahams, Jamaica's former Tourism Minister was being paid by Ameri ::an businessmen for the multi-million dollar tourism contract:,. Sources close to the federal grand jury have f;aid Abrahams is a key figure in the investigation, the newspaper said, Abrahams, however, has not testi'ied before the grand jury empannelled in New Haven, The Advocate reported. The newspaper said efforts to reach Abrahams and his successor, Hugh Hart, during the past two weeks w,3re unsuccessful, and Hart didn't return telephone calls to his office on Monday. Moore 61, said the notes in his diary are impressiorn; of what was going on between Abrahams and the United States companies. The subjects also appeared in letters between him and friends in Jamaica. ' I have no definitive proof that this ever happened - it 11i1as just a suspicion of mine,' Moore said. 'People were 6 talking. There were certain things everybody know. Tr-3re was no secret about the situation with the (former) Minhter of Tourism'. Moore said IRS agents seized his diary and 01,1er documents in June 1983, when he was being investigcited for his part in phony literary tax shelters.